


The Time War, Inappropriate Relationships With Superiors and Other Extreme Sports

by redjaded (timeheist)



Series: The Redjay [5]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-18 01:23:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3550856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timeheist/pseuds/redjaded
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or: Roda's 'misadventures' during the Time War.</p><p>A series of chronological one-shots.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Time War, Inappropriate Relationships With Superiors and Other Extreme Sports

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The news, down the grapevine that was the General Communications Link, was that the Doctor had done it again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a companion piece to the novel 'Engines of War' by George Mann, and takes place during Roda's 5th regeneration, and the Time War.

The news, down the grapevine that was the General Communications Link, was that the Doctor had done _it_ again. Just what _it_ was, Rodageitmososa was yet to find out, but the news that it had involved had probably pissed off the Lord President was enough to bring light to an otherwise bleak, war-torn day. You were lucky to ever catch more than a few words of a sentence down the link unless it was something important, and so Roda had made a mental note to look him up later, if she survived the flotilla of Dalek ships they were currently on-route to destroy. As it was, by the time she dragged herself back to Gallifrey all thoughts of anything but the War had gone from her mind.

She was in the Barracks - generally avoiding the gossip that came with everyone knowing that you weren’t supposed to be there, no matter how much you wanted to help save your home planet, because you were somehow ‘criminal’ and ‘wrong’ - when she remembered about it. Her TARDIS, not a specially-equipped Battle TARDIS, like the rest of the teams’, had taken more than just cosmetic damage in their last ambush, and when the gaggle of young Time Lords (barely more than Tots) had swept into the room, they hadn’t noticed her trying to get the door of her TARDIS to actually close. She’d stopped hammering the hinge back into shape and pressed herself against the exterior wall, ears pricking up at the words ‘the Doctor’.

“Did you hear what that old fart did this time?”

Roda rolled her eyes and resisted the urge to snort. Tots, these days. Sure, her regeneration looked to be in its youth - black hair, nearly black eyes, actually tall for once -, by human standards at least; the Doctor on the other hand - more than half her age - had gray hair and wrinkles, last she’d heard. Just when he’d regenerated, she hadn’t yet managed to find him, pin him down, and ask him. She supposed he no longer had Charley or C’rizz with him, if he was a part of the War effort, too, and she hoped they were doing alright. They’d gotten along pretty well when the Doctor had introduced them, and she’d liked his youthful regeneration, too. All eccentricities and insecurities… they had understood each other.

She hoped he was alright, too.

“I heard he broke all nine security protocols.”

“ _I_ heard,” interrupted the first voice, a Scelces soldier, judging by his fuschia robes, “he’s in for it, this time.”

“Probably. Lord Rassilon-”

Roda heard a punch, and inadvertently flinched.

“What do _you_ know about what the Lord _President_ says?”

“My father…”

At that, Roda had rolled her eyes and started hitting the TARDIS door again with an energy intended to mean ‘bugger off and gossip somewhere else, if you’ve got nothing important to eavesdrop on’. Muttering to themselves and shooting her TARDIS dirty looks, the boys had wandered off, strutting like peacocks. A couple of hours later, Roda brought the topic up herself over a thrown-together dinner of something that pretended to be meat and fine, freshly-cooked bread in the mess hall quite a few doors down from where the Officers and the Castellan ate. Those soldiers with families to return to - or that they wanted to return to - went home on quieter nights; the ones without all ate together in a slightly-too small room full of slightly-too many people, never minding what was ‘befitting of a Time Lord’.

“I heard the Doctor’s back on Gallifrey,” Roda announced, almost too innocently, through a mouthful of bread. “Anyone know what’s going on?”

The room fell silent for a few seconds, as every head in the room snapped up, stared at Roda, then in unison turned to the head of the table. Maxras sighed exasperatedly, swallowing the last of his drink in one go and massaging his temples. He’d been in the Castellan’s Guard before he’d signed up for the War, and he wore it like a coat. Every time something happened in Gallifrey that hadn’t yet ‘gone public’ he was the first to know, and it gave him a social standing that most ex-Castellan soldiers tended not to achieve amongst the troops (the only people thought less fitting of fighting were the exiles, thought Roda ruefully, though how anyone thought they had the luxury to pick or choose in a War like this she’d never know). Roda was reluctant to force yet another crowd of expectant people on the poor man, but desperate times, desperate measures… took the heat off of her, too.

“Don’t look at me!”

“Come off it Maxras,” snapped Ender, gesticulating wildly with his mug, “you were practically in the Castellan’s pockets. Enlighten us all as to what happened in the Panopticon this morning.”

“Well it’s - I mean -”

“Come on, spit it out Maxie…” Landathra (a pretty redhead, around Roda’s age (as many regenerations, too), and exactly her kind of woman, too, now she thought about it. Commander Wicinron wasn’t bad-looking either, in a ‘I don’t know if I want to hate you or make out with you’ kind of way. Roda supposed there was a time and a place, and at least they didn’t hate each other, anymore.) whined. “We don’t have all night.”

Maxras snorted, turning his nose up, but Roda noticed his lips curl into a look of smug superiority when he finally spoke. His air of reluctance was a pretty good show, but half the table could see through it. “Well if you must know, it’s all pretty hush hush. Only the Castellan and his closest-”

“Get on with it!”

“...friends,” Maxras pouted, “know the details.”

Ender rolled his eyes with a grin. “I heard it happened in a room full of people.”

Murmurs and nods rippled around the room in agreement, and Roda piped up to add: “breaking protocol, at that…!”

“Yes..” Maxras steepled his fingers, sneering slightly. “Apparently the Doctor thought himself above us all, again. Caused an utter panic this morning when he decided to land his TARDIS in the middle of the Panopticon.” The shocked silence was almost deafening, every single person in the room (whether they had pretended to be interested or not) hanging onto Maxras’ words. All except for Roda, who couldn’t stop herself from bursting into wild laughter, so that she only just caught what else the Time Lord had to say. “The Castellan was called and the Lord President’s aide,” Roda wrinkled his nose; Rassilon’s balls, Karlax was a piece of work… “They were in the middle of recalling everyone off the field before they worked out it was that old madman again.”

Landathra was the first to break the silence. “What the Skaro _for_?”

“That I don’t know.” Maxras seemed disappointed, tearing into his meat once more. “But he had a _human_ with him no less. Scruffy looking ape from one of the Tantalus Colonies, I’d wager.”

“Some new companion?” asked Ender, incredulously. “You’d think he’d have learned his lesson after the War started…”

Roda bared her teeth, opening her mouth to argue in the Doctor’s defence, when someone cleared his throat from not far behind her.

“What the Skaro are you lot gossiping over?”

“C-Commander Partheus!”

Chairs scratched and squeaked on the floor as almost every single Time Lord and Lady scrambled to stand up and salute the Commander. Only Roda remained seating, slowly lifting her mug to her mouth and taking a long drink as she made a point of not standing up. She could feel the Commander’s gaze on her neck, but he was a reasonable man, and didn’t try to make anything out of it. Roda smiled, gratefully. These days, she took any small victory where she could; it was the only way to get through all this…

“We were just-” began Ender.

“Maxras was only-” protested Landathra, in unison.

“It was the _Redjay_ that started it.”

Roda almost dropped her cup, her neck cracking as she turned to glare at Maxras with such a vicious expression that he cleared his throat and turned his gaze onto his feet. She could still see the smile on his face, though now, it didn’t quite reach his eyes. The little weasel…! One of these days, she really wanted to give him a piece of her -

“Oh shut up,” drawled Partheus, buttoning up his cuffs while he spoke, “ _All_ of you.”

Turning to face him, Roda realised for the first time that his expression was far more serious than simply catching soldiers gossiping over dinner. Something had happened; by the intensity of his glare, it was something to do with whatever the Doctor had thought important enough to make an entrance to tell them about. She swallowed down her anger, and slowly pushed herself to her feet as Partheus continued to talk.

“My men, get your guns, the rest, back to barracks. The Lord President has a mission for us…”


End file.
